“Make a dirty mark on his nice clean deck?” Sharpe asked.

“I suppose he won’t,” Llewellyn said sadly. “Still, if it comes to a battle I’ll give some to the boys up the masts and they can hurl them onto the enemy decks. They have to be good for something.”

“Chuck ‘em overboard,” Sharpe advised.

“Dear me, no! I don’t want to hurt the fish, Sharpe!”

Llewellyn, hugely relieved by the discovery, had the precious grenades taken to the forward magazine and Sharpe followed the marines up the ladder to the orlop deck which, being beneath the water line, was almost as dark as the hold. The marines went forrard, while Sharpe went toward the stern, intending to climb to Chase’s dining cabin for midday dinner, but he could not use the companionway up to the lower deck for a man in a faded black coat was clambering unsteadily down the ladder. Sharpe instinctively waited, then saw that it was Malachi Braithwaite who so cautiously descended the rungs. Sharpe stepped swiftly back into the surgeon’s cabin where the red-painted walls and table waited for battle’s casualties and from there he watched Braithwaite take a lantern from a hook beside the companionway. The secretary fumbled with a tinderbox, blew on the charred linen to make a flame and lit the oil lamp. He put the lamp on the deck, then grunted as he heaved up the aft hatch of the hold to release a stench of bilge water and rot. Braithwaite shuddered, nerved himself, then took the lantern and clambered down into the ship’s depths.

Sharpe followed. There were moments in life, he thought, when fate played into his hands. There had been such a moment when he met Sergeant Hakeswill and joined the army, and another on the battlefield at Assaye when a general had been unhorsed, and now Braithwaite was alone in the hold. Sharpe stood by the hatch and watched Braithwaite’s lantern bob as the secretary went slowly down the ladder, and then went aft toward the place where the officers’ dunnage was stored.

Sharpe dropped down the ladder and carefully pulled the hatch shut behind him. He went stealthily, though any noise his shoes made on the rungs was masked by the creak of the great pine masts which protruded down through all the decks to be rooted in the elmwood keel. The sound of the flexing masts was magnified in the hold, which also reverberated to the squelching clatter of the ship’s six pumps, the sound of the sea and the grating screech of the rudder turning on its pintles.

This after part of the hold was isolated from the forward part of the ship by a great heap of water butts and vinegar barrels that stretched from the planking above the bilge to the beams of the orlop deck twelve feet above. Those beams were supported by great shafts of oak that, in the dim lantern light, looked like the pillars of an old, smoke-darkened church. Braithwaite threaded his way between the oak pillars, climbing the gentle rise of the ship’s hull toward a stack of shelves at the very back of the hold that shielded a small space in the stern that was known as the lady hole because it provided the safest place on board during a battle. There was nothing valuable kept on the shelves, merely the officers’ unwanted dunnage, but Lord William had brought so much luggage to the Pucelle that some of it had to be stored here, and Sharpe, crouching in the shadow of some casks of pungent salt beef, watched the secretary climb a short ladder to find a leather case which he hauled from the top shelf and carried awkwardly back to the deck. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the case which proved to be crammed with papers. Nothing there, Sharpe thought, for any light-fingered seamen to filch, though he did not doubt that some of them would already have picked the case’s lock in hope of better spoils. Braithwaite leafed through the papers, found what he wanted, relocked the case and carried it back up the ladder where he clumsily pushed it past the wooden bar that kept the shelf’s contents from spilling in a high sea. The secretary was muttering to himself and snatches of his words carried to Sharpe. “I’m an Oxford man, not a slave! It could have waited till we reached England. Get in there, damn you!”

The case was finally stowed away, Braithwaite came down the ladder, pocketed the sheet of paper, collected his lantern and started back toward the larger ladder that lay alongside the mizzenmast and led to the closed hatch. He did not see Sharpe. He thought he was alone in the hold until a hand suddenly grasped his collar. “Hello, Oxford man,” Sharpe said.

“Jesus!” Braithwaite swore and shuddered. Sharpe took the lantern from the secretary’s nerveless hand and placed it on top of a cask, then spun Braithwaite around and pushed him hard so that he fell onto the deck.

“I had an interesting conversation with her ladyship the other day,” Sharpe said. “It seems you’re blackmailing her.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Sharpe, ridiculous.” Braithwaite thrust himself backward until he could go no further, then sat with his back against the water casks where he brushed at the dirt on his trousers and coat.

“Do they teach blackmail at Oxford?” Sharpe asked. “I thought they only taught you useless things like Latin and Greek, but I’m wrong, am I? They give lectures in blackmail and housebreaking, maybe? Pocket-slitting on the side, perhaps?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Braithwaite,” Sharpe said. He picked up the lantern and walked slowly toward the terrified secretary. “You’re blackmailing Lady Grace. You want her jewels, don’t you, and maybe more? You’d like her in your bed, wouldn’t you? You’d like to go where I’ve been, Braithwaite.”

Braithwaite’s eyes widened. He was scared, but he was not so witless as to miss the significance of Sharpe’s words. Sharpe had admitted the adultery, and that meant Braithwaite was about to die, for Sharpe could not afford to let him live and tell the tale. “I just came to fetch a memorandum, Sharpe,” the secretary babbled in apparent panic, “that’s all. I came to fetch this paper. Just a memorandum, Sharpe, for Lord William’s report. Let me show you,” and he put a hand in his pocket to fetch the paper and brought out, not a memorandum, but a small pistol. It was the kind of gun designed to be carried in a purse or pocket for use against cutthroats or highwaymen and Braithwaite, his hand shaking, dragged back the flint. “I’ve carried this ever since you threatened me, Sharpe.” His voice was suddenly more confident as he leveled the pistol.

Sharpe dropped the lantern.

It hit the deck, there was a shudder of light, then the smash of glass and utter darkness. Sharpe twisted aside, half expecting to hear the pistol crack, but Braithwaite had retained enough nerve to hold his fire.

“You’ve got one shot, Oxford man,” Sharpe said. “One shot, then it’s my turn.”

Silence, except for the clatter of the pumps and the noise of the masts and the scratching of rats’ feet in the bilge.

“I’m used to this,” Sharpe said. “I’ve crawled in the darkness before, Braithwaite, and killed men. Cut their gizzards. I did it outside Gawilghur on a dark night. Cut two men’s throats, Braithwaite, slit them back to the spine.” He was crouching behind a cask so that if Braithwaite did fire then the secretary would merely inflict a wound on a barrel of salt beef. Sharpe kept his body behind the cask and reached out with his left hand, scraping his nails on the plank deck. “I slit their gizzards, Oxford man.”

“We can come to an agreement, Sharpe,” Braithwaite said nervously. He had not moved since the hold went dark. Sharpe knew that, for he would have heard. He reckoned Braithwaite was waiting until he went close and then he would fire. Just like ship-to-ship fighting. Let the bugger get close, then fire.

“What kind of agreement, Oxford man?” Sharpe asked, then scratched the deck again, making little noises that would be magnified by the secretary’s fear. He found a shard of broken lantern glass and scraped it on the wood.